Another thing I like to do is to listen more attentively — to concentrate harder, and get a little lesson out of the conversation. I’ve been out with scientists who’ve refreshed my basic understanding of physics, and photographers who’ve given me a better understanding of how cameras work. And though I still don’t quite understand the stock market, or the housing crisis, or derivatives, I’ve realized I really should know more about the economy, so I concentrate more when I’m talking to banker-types these days.

Haha. “So, how big is the fairy inside the camera who draws the pictures? And how can she draw them so quickly is what I’m wondering?!” Also this:

If you want to go so far as to get out a pen and a napkin to take notes on the topic of instruction — or ask your conversation partner to draw you an outline, or some kind of graph — I think you should go for it.

“On the topic of instruction”!? God bless you, Maura. The next boring date I’m on, I’ll just slowly draw a line from one corner of a napkin to the other, and then label one side “time this date has gone on” and the other “shittiness of it,” and then slowly push the napkin toward him. “I think I did this right but can you check?” No, that’s of course terrible and a joke. The only solution to boring dates, obviously, is to drink a bunch.